Birds are the most conspicuous wildlife in Seward Park.
Over 100 species live in or visit the park throughout the year,
from majestic bald eagles and great blue herons to tiny bushtits and hummingbirds.

The park offers a variety of aquatic and terrestrial habitats for
birds. Diving ducks, western grebes, coots and glaucous-winged gulls are
often seen on the open lake. Great blue herons, pied-billed grebes,
double crested cormorants and kingfishers are more frequently seen on
sheltered Andrews Bay. Red-winged blackbirds are found in the marshes,
while downy woodpeckers favor the Lombardy poplars planted along the
lakeshore. Dippers visited the fish hatchery stream when it was in
operation. Robins, starlings, crows and Canada geese frequent the lawns.
Western tanagers, song sparrows and chickadees are often seen in the
more open wooded and shrubby areas in the south part of the park. The
old-growth forest hosts pileated woodpeckers, Steller's jays, winter
wrens, western screech-owls and red-breasted nuthatches.

Migration Patterns

Many birds are resident all year long, while others visit seasonally.
Most people are familiar with songbirds that visit in the summer to
breed but fly south for the winter. The Seattle area also receives many
winter visitors from farther north. Other birds merely pass through our
area on their way northward or southward in the spring or fall. Some
birds migrate seasonally not north or south, but between the lowlands
and the mountains, between the west and east sides of the Cascades, or
between coastal and interior waters.

Summer visitors include ospreys, rufous hummingbirds, western tanagers,
swallows, warblers and Swainson's thrushes. Greater white-fronted geese
and migratory Canada geese pass through the park in the spring and fall.
Many kinds of waterfowl are winter visitors. Double-crested cormorants,
common loons and most kinds of grebes, gulls and ducks are seen
primarily in the winter. Varied thrushes and dark-eyed juncos are among
the birds that come to the lowlands from the mountains for the winter.

Birds play important roles in the health of the forest. Many birds help
disperse seeds or control insect populations. rufous hummingbirds are
major pollinators of three important understory plants in the park:
orange honeysuckle, salmonberry, and red-flowering currant. The nectar
of these plants is an important food source for hummingbirds, which
transfer pollen between flowers as they feed. Migratory rufous
hummingbirds arrive in March around the time that salmonberry and
currant are in flower and stay through the summer feeding on
honeysuckle, hedge nettle, other plants and insects. Anna's hummingbirds
can be found in the park throughout the year, but unlike their
migratory relatives, they depend primarily on ornamental plants and
feeders, and are relative newcomers to the Seattle area, first seen in
1964.

In the 1960's bald eagles were threatened with extinction in the lower
48 states, resulting in their federal protection and a ban on DDT in the
early 1970's. Signs of a local comeback were evident when the first
eagle nest within Seattle was found in 1980 in Seward Park. Currently,
two pairs of eagles nest in the park within a half mile of each other,
an unusually close distance. In 1999 each pair raised two chick. The
eagles are often seen fishing or hunting coots or ducks along the
lakeshore.

Are Those Parrots?

Among the most unusual birds in the park are the exotic conures. These
noisy parakeets have inhabited the park for several years and are often
seen around the north bluff of Pinoy Hill. They have been identified as
Chapman's mitred conure or as the closely related scarlet-fronted
conure, both native to Peru. They have been observed eating bigleaf
maple flowers and visiting neighborhood feeders where they enjoy
sunflower seeds. In winter they are more frequently observed in the
Maple Leaf neighborhood.